Blood donation and beyond.

World Blood Donor Day is celebrated on 14 June every year.1 On that day, countries all around the world express their appreciation for blood donors, whose generous gift of blood have saved the lives of millions of people they have never met. It is a precious gift indeed as the donated red blood cells help to carry suffi cient oxygen to critical tissues during anaemia or blood loss while the derived platelets and plasma help to prevent uncontrolled bleeding in selected situations. Yet, the global need for blood transfusion is far greater than the current available supply. This situation is most acutely felt in developing countries, which have 82% of the world’s population, but which only collect 38% of the world’s blood units.2 While history is fi lled with many exciting and, sometimes horrifi c encounters of both successful and failed blood transfusions, the 20th century saw many new breakthroughs for blood transfusion. In 1900, Karl Landstenier discovered human blood groups,3 paving the way for the fi rst direct human blood transfusion4 and a century of development in safe and rational blood transfusion. Currently, the whole blood transfusion has been largely replaced by transfusion of specifi c blood components like packed red blood cells, plasma or platelets are carried out instead. This increases the effi ciency of blood banking and helps deliver the appropriate blood product to the patient most in need of it. The advent of pheresis devices that perform dynamic separation of blood components have further facilitated the collection of specifi c blood components leading to more effi cient platelet and granulocyte donation.5 The discovery of transfusion transmissible diseases like the viral hepatitis and the human immunodefi ciency virus led to a new wave of awareness in the screening of donors and blood products. The threat of continually emerging infectious diseases further threatens our access to safe blood. Fortunately, scientifi c advances in blood processing, storage and testing technologies, as well as numerous efforts to promote and enhance blood donation have helped to meet these challenges. However, increased need of testing also means escalating costs – which developing countries can ill afford.